- Feds to end Minnesota occupation; Walz wants damages paid
Source: KMSP 9 News
“Gov. Tim Walz says he’s cautiously optimistic about the Trump administration announcing an end to the ICE [gang occupation of] Minnesota but is demanding the federal government take accountability for what happened during the surge, including ‘the incredible and immense costs.’ President Trump’s Border Czar, Tom Homan, announced Thursday morning that the surge would end. [Gang members] have already started leaving the state, but the drawdown will continue through next week. Homan cited several factors in ending the drawdown but primarily continued cooperation with local authorities. … Walz says the first thing he is focused on is economic recovery from the [occupation]. The topic of Thursday’s press conference was originally a budget proposal to help businesses impacted by the ICE [rioting]. Along with that proposal, Gov. Walz is pushing federal leaders to pay for ‘what they broke.'” (02/12/26)
https://www.fox9.com/news/end-ice-surge-gov-walz-says-feds-need-pay-what-broke-here
- Realtor report: Existing US home sales dropped 8.4% in January
Source: United Press International
“Sales of existing homes greatly declined in January despite mortgage rates coming down, a report from the National Association of Realtors released Thursday says. Existing home sales, sales of homes that were previously owned and occupied, fell 8.4% in January on a seasonally adjusted annual rate. Sales were 4.4% lower than January 2025. The median sales price of existing homes was $396,800 for all housing types, nearly a 1% increase over a year ago.” (02/12/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/02/12/existing-home-sales-decline-january-2026/8131770930457/
- US colleges received more than $5 billion in foreign gifts, contracts in 2025
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
“U.S. colleges received more than 5 billion dollars in reportable foreign gifts and contracts in 2025, according to a new website from the U.S. Education Department. The release is part of a push by the Trump administration to make foreign influence in colleges and universities more transparent. Among the biggest recipients, the data show, are Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. Qatar was the largest foreign source of funds to schools, making up more than 20% — or about 1.1 billion. Other sources include the United Kingdom, China, Switzerland and Japan.” (02/12/26)
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/12/nx-s1-5711359/us-colleges-5-billion-in-foreign-gifts
- Studies test whether gene-editing can fix high cholesterol
Source: SFGate
“Scientists are testing an entirely new way to fight heart disease: a gene-editing treatment that might offer a one-time fix for high cholesterol. It’s very early stage research, tried in only a few dozen people so far. But gene-editing approaches being developed by two companies show hints that switching off certain genes could dramatically lower artery-clogging cholesterol, raising hopes of one day being able to prevent heart attacks without having to take pills. ‘People want a fix, not a bandage,’ said Dr. Luke Laffin, a preventive cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic. After co-authoring a promising study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, he said he was flooded with queries about how to participate in the next clinical trial.” (02/11/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/living/article/studies-test-whether-gene-editing-can-fix-high-21347685.php
- CIA releases new video aiming to recruit Chinese military officers
Source: CBS News
“The CIA has released a new Mandarin-language recruitment video aimed at Chinese military officers, portraying a fictional, mid-level People’s Liberation Army officer grappling with corrupt leadership and ultimately choosing to contact the American intelligence agency. The video is the latest installment in a public-facing recruitment campaign targeting China, which CIA Director John Ratcliffe has described as the agency’s top intelligence priority amid what he has called a ‘generational competition’ with Beijing. In the short film, the central character watches as qualified officers are removed and replaced by political loyalists lacking military credentials. Troubled by what he sees as corruption, and concerned about the impact on his young family, the officer decides to reach out to the CIA.” (02/12/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cia-video-recruit-chinese-military-officers/
- France: Police detain nine in suspected massive Louvre ticket fraud scheme
Source: SFGate
“The Paris prosecutors office on Thursday said that nine people were being detained as part of an investigation into a suspected decade-long, 10 million euro ($11.8 million) ticket fraud scheme at the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum. The arrests took place on Tuesday as part of a judicial investigation opened after the Louvre filed a complaint in December 2024, the prosecutors’ office said. The loss for the museum over the past decade is estimated to exceed 10 million euros ($11.8 million), it said. Those detained include two Louvre employees, several tour guides and one person suspected of being the mastermind, according to the prosecutors’ office. The museum alerted investigators about the frequent presence of two Chinese tour guides suspected of bringing groups of Chinese tourists into the museum by fraudulently reusing the same tickets multiple times for different visitors. Other guides were later suspected of similar practices.” (02/12/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/police-in-france-detain-9-people-in-suspected-21350204.php
- EPA eliminates greenhouse emission standards for vehicles
Source: United Press International
“The Trump administration announced an end to greenhouse gas emission standards for all vehicles made in model year 2012 or later Thursday. The administration revoked the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and all other emission standards related to greenhouse gases. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a press release that the move will save taxpayers $1.3 trillion. … The Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding set the legal basis for regulating pollution tied to climate change as part of the Clean Air Act, the primary federal air quality law enacted in 1963.” (02/12/26)
- Belgium: Police raid EU Commission buildings in property sale probe
Source: Politico
“Belgian police searched offices of the European Commission on Thursday as part of an investigation into the 2024 sale of several Commission buildings to the Belgian state. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), an independent body responsible for investigating and prosecuting crimes affecting the EU’s financial interests, is leading the probe. EPPO confirmed to POLITICO it is conducting ‘evidence-collecting activities’ related to ‘an ongoing investigation.’ The office declined to provide further details, citing the need to protect the integrity of proceedings.” (02/12/26)
https://www.politico.eu/article/belgian-police-raid-eu-commission-building-property-sale-probe/
- South Africa: Regime will deploy troops to fight illegal mining, gang violence
Source: ABC News
“South Africa’s president said Thursday that the country would send its troops into communities to help police fight the scourge of illegal mining and gang violence in its two provinces with the two biggest cities. According to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, ‘organized crime is now the most immediate threat to our democracy,’ endangering both economic stability and public safety, particularly in Gauteng and the Western Cape. … Authorities in South Africa have long struggled to prevent gangs of miners from entering some of the 6,000 closed or abandoned mines in the gold-rich nation to search for remaining reserves.” (02/12/26)
- Cuba: Two Mexican Navy ships laden with humanitarian aid dock, as US blockade sparks energy crisis
Source: SFGate
“Two Mexican Navy ships laden with humanitarian aid docked in Cuba on Thursday as a U.S. blockade deepens the island’s energy crisis. The ships arrived two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country selling or providing oil to Cuba, prompting the island to ration energy in recent days. The Mexican government said that one ship carried some 536 tons of food including milk, rice, beans, sardines, meat products, cookies, canned tuna, and vegetable oil, as well as personal hygiene items. The second ship carried just over 277 tons of powdered milk. Yohandri Espinosa, a 34-year-old engineer, observed the ships arrive with his daughter and took pictures. ‘This is incredibly important aid for the Cuban people at this moment,’ he said. ‘We are living through difficult times of great need and uncertainty, and we don’t know how long we will be like this.'” (02/12/25)
- Judge orders return of Venezuelans formerly detained in El Salvador if they choose to come back
Source: NBC News
“A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to start allowing Venezuelans sent to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador to return to the United States for their immigration proceedings if they choose to. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote in an order that it was requiring the administration to allow entry to any of the more than 130 Venezuelan men who were held for four months in the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. ‘It is worth emphasizing that this situation would never have arisen had the Government simply afforded Plaintiffs their constitutional rights before initially deporting them,’ he wrote.” (02/12/26)
- Google says attackers used 100,000+ prompts to try to clone AI chatbot Gemini
Source: NBC News
“Google says its flagship artificial intelligence chatbot, Gemini, has been inundated by ‘commercially motivated’ actors who are trying to clone it by repeatedly prompting it, sometimes with thousands of different queries — including one campaign that prompted Gemini more than 100,000 times. In a report published Thursday, Google said it has increasingly come under ‘distillation attacks,’ or repeated questions designed to get a chatbot to reveal its inner workings. Google described the activity as ‘model extraction,’ in which would-be copycats probe the system for the patterns and logic that make it work. The attackers appear to want to use the information to build or bolster their own AI, it said. The company believes the culprits are mostly private companies or researchers looking to gain a competitive advantage.” (02/12/26)
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/google-gemini-hit-100000-prompts-cloning-attempt-rcna258657
- The lying is out of control. People need to go to prison.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
by Will Bunch“Let’s not pretend to be so naive to act like official deceit began on the June 2015 day that Donald Trump descended on that Trump Tower escalator. It was the late 1960s — the era of Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam ‘credibility gap’ — when the investigative journalist I.F. Stone famously wrote, ‘All governments lie.’ I became an opinion journalist because of my disgust over George W. Bush’s lies that drove the Iraq War. That said, the outrageous, Soviet-caliber falsehoods of the Trump regime feel much worse. These are not ‘plausible denial’ fairy tales to push an unpopular policy or cover up some dirty deeds, like Watergate, but a vast empire of Big Lies — easily disprovable, about everything from election results to economic statistics — with a much more ambitious goal of undermining the very notion of objective reality.” (02/12/26)
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/government-lying-ice-shootings-lutnick-20260212.html
- The Biggest Bait-and-Switch War of the Century
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Jim Bovard“A few presidencies ago, Washington politicians used boundless political and intellectual chicanery to drag America into a ruinous war. Thousands of Americans died and scores of thousands of Iraqis perished due to the official myth of Saddam Hussein as the twentieth hijacker. Last November, Axios published new damning information on the role of Saudi government officials in bankrolling the 9/11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. Private lawsuits against the Saudi regime ‘unearthed evidence showing one Saudi official — who acknowledges aiding two men who became hijackers — made a drawing of a plane and a mathematical formula that allegedly could have been used to fly into the World Trade Center.’ That was only the latest stunning revelation in a coverup that will celebrate its twenty-fifth birthday this year.” (02/12/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-biggest-bait-and-switch-war-of-the-century
- Deadlocks and Credibility
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan“The idea of credibility probably looms even larger in foreign policy than in economics. Everyone knows that you can’t trust other countries’ promises of good intentions, right? The reason, supposedly, is that national leaders are tirelessly scheming to advance their national interests — and will happily lie, cheat, and betray rival countries to do so. This, in turn, sustains the international deadlocks that dominate headlines decade after decade.” (02/12/26)
- Property Rights and the Arctic Contest
Source: EconLog
by Maurizio Bovi“In recent years, the Arctic has returned to the center of public attention: the renewed interest in Greenland, the progressive opening of maritime routes due to ice melt, and the claims over areas like the Svalbard archipelago are clear signals that Arctic policy will remain in the public eye. … These profound developments in the Arctic, evident in the renewed scramble for resources and strategic positioning, are naturally subject to a plurality of interpretations. Analysts might foreground military superpower competition, climate security, international legal disputes, or economic opportunity. I propose applying a theoretical lens often overlooked in public debate: Harold Demsetz’s theory of property rights.” (02/12/26)
- Provoking a war with Iran could be a deadly miscalculation for Trump
Source: The Hill
by Rosemary Kelanic“Once again, President Trump is steering the U.S. toward a perilous and unnecessary confrontation with Iran. In January, Trump threatened to topple the Iranian regime for violently crushing protests. Now, as U.S. forces amass in the Middle East, his rationale for pressuring Iran has shifted. Trump is demanding new concessions from the regime, including caps on Iran’s missile program and the total removal of enriched uranium from the country. He is also threatening consequences ‘far worse’ than last June’s Operation Midnight Hammer. The president’s ultimate goals in the region remain unclear, as are the military measures he might adopt, which could include airstrikes, a naval blockade, or even regime change. The risks of escalation are grave, with each side poised to misjudge the other’s determination.” (02/12/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/5734208-trump-iran-conflict-escalation/
- Postscript to Coase
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman“In my earlier post I observed that the organizational costs of hierarchical coordination become larger as the size of the firm, the number of people being coordinated, increased. It occurred to me when I was writing it that there was also a pattern to the transaction costs of market coordination, that they decreased as the size of the market, the number of alternative sellers or buyers of the good being produced, increases. I did not have my thoughts on that subject well enough worked out at that point to include them in the post, hence this postscript.” (02/12/26)
- The “Good Deal” Lie
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison“Every aggressor would prefer that the other side yields everything without a fight, so it doesn’t mean anything when the president says that a deal is his ‘preference.’ No doubt he would also prefer that Denmark hands over Greenland without any resistance. Trump’s preference, as always, is for the domination and the humiliation of other nations. That is why his ‘good deal’ is a laundry list of things Iran will never accept. It is no accident that his diplomatic track record is extremely poor. Other governments have no interest in accepting Trump’s demands for their surrender. The president’s insistence on a ‘good deal’ is bad news for the U.S. and Iran.” (02/12/26)
- Do Construction Workers Have Fourth Amendment Rights? A Federal Court Will Decide.
Source: Reason
by Agustina Vergara Cid“Immigration agents have intensified raids on construction sites across the country as the Trump administration pursues mass deportations. The raids often involve federal agents entering worksites without warrants, chasing workers, and detaining them (including U.S. citizens) for identity and immigration status checks. Now, the federal government is defending some of those tactics in court and asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit challenging them. In one such defense, the Trump administration basically argued that Fourth Amendment rights do not apply here: An attorney representing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) argued that federal agents don’t need warrants to enter construction sites, in a motion filed on January 29 in the Southern District of Alabama.” (02/12/26)
- MAGA Outgrows Isolationism, Yet America First Means America Alone
Source: TomDispatch
by John Feffer“A mere 15 years ago, during an epoch that now seems as distant as the Paleozoic era, an American president attempted to use military power to prevent a dictator from slaughtering his own citizens. Barack Obama billed the action in Libya as a humanitarian intervention, citing the new U.N. doctrine of ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P). The president hoped to avert a massacre by Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi rather than, as usual, coming in afterwards …. It’s impossible to know if the U.S.-led action did indeed prevent massive war crimes. However, the disastrous aftermath of that Libyan campaign — the summary execution of Qaddafi and a civil war that would kill tens of thousands — was yet more evidence that Washington’s attempts to police the world are quixotic at best.” (02/12/25)
- Marco’s World
Source: The American Conservative
by Juan David Rojas“Inside the scene that made a co-president.” (02/12/26)
- The Problem with America First Global Health
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Roger Bate“The America First Global Health Strategy is an operating model that emerged after the United States withdrew from the World Health Organization and needed a way to remain active internationally without WHO governance. Instead of working primarily through multilateral institutions, the US is now signing five-year bilateral health memoranda with dozens of low- and middle-income countries, overwhelmingly in sub-Saharan Africa. These agreements bundle longstanding programs on HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and surveillance into large government-to-government compacts, often involving hundreds of millions — or billions — of dollars. In substance, this is continuity more than rupture; what has changed is the structure.” (02/12/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-problem-with-america-first-global-health/
- What Zimbabwe Can Learn From Chile: A Tale of Two Data Series
Source: The Daily Economy
by Paul McDonnold“Economic freedom, like freedom in general, is inherently fragile. National institutions and attitudes can shift the ground quickly.” (02/12/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/what-zimbabwe-can-learn-from-chile-a-tale-of-two-data-series/
- For Epstein Victims and Members of Congress, Time to Put Up or Shut Up
Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter“I don’t want to be that guy who throws the red challenge flag on the victims of child sex trafficking at the hands of Democrat Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirator and fellow Democrat Ghislaine Maxwell, but someone has to. Someone has to because the ‘justice’ these women are demanding, or are claiming to demand, is fully and completely within their grasp, and their grasp alone. Yet, they don’t seem willing to take it. Sooner or later, they have to put up, or shut up, don’t they? There comes a point at which you either put your money where your mouth is or you stop talking trash. People who talk about how tough they are, or how good they are at something, often get really quiet when challenged to a fight or a game.” (02/12/25)
- Bad Bunny’s dancers, Kalshi, and the insider trading problem
Source: Popular Information
by Judd Legum“Prediction markets, including Kalshi and Polymarket, are exploding in popularity. Kalshi alone saw over $1 billion in trading volume on Super Bowl Sunday. Remarkably, more than $100 million was wagered on what song Bad Bunny would play first during his halftime show. That kind of market has raised concerns about insider trading. Not only is Bad Bunny in control of which song is played, but this information is also known in advance by dancers, musicians, crew, and anyone who happened to be around during rehearsals. This is likely why, just before the big game, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour announced a laundry list of efforts to crack down on insider trading.” (02/12/26)
- Making America Stagnate Again
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman“Deportations don’t create jobs and will increase deaths of native-born Americans. Who knew?” (02/12/26)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/making-america-stagnate-again
- Abolition Is Still the Only Way Out of This
Source: The Nation
by Andrea J Ritchie“As the scale and scope of state violence against migrants and the neighbors and community members who protect them — including the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis and of Keith Porter and Silverio Villegas González by ICE in Los Angeles and Chicago — has rapidly escalated over the first year of the second Trump administration, so have the familiar calls for quick fixes for state violence. Meanwhile, hopes placed in Democrats to save us by finally recognizing that the police state they have helped build is the vehicle through which authoritarianism is being consolidated are repeatedly dashed. This is true of the party’s recent, tepid proposals to put ‘guardrails’ on ICE.” (02/12/26)
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/ice-abolition-police-reform/
- The SAVE Act and the Election Power Grab
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Michael Waldman“For months, we have warned of a drive by President Donald Trump and his administration to undermine the 2026 election. It is unprecedented, outlandish. Now Trump himself is blaring his intent, and over the past week the public issue has exploded. The fight for a free and fair vote is taking shape, especially after House Republicans on Wednesday night passed the euphemistically named SAVE Act. Make no mistake: The SAVE Act would stop millions of American citizens from voting. It would be the most restrictive voting bill ever passed by Congress. It is Trump’s power grab in legislative garb. Effectively, the bill would require Americans to produce a passport or birth certificate to register and thus to vote. Brennan Center research shows that 21 million people lack ready access to these documents. Half of all Americans don’t have a passport, for example.” (02/12/25)
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/save-act-and-election-power-grab
- ICE is pushing Minneapolis underground
Source: The Verge
by Gaby Del Valle“Minneapolis was not the war zone I expected to find. Depending on who you are and where you live, things can seem, for a few fleeting moments, almost normal, like a few blocks or neighborhoods over people aren’t being tear gassed or rounded up by ICE or, in two tragic cases, being gunned down by federal agents. Even now some people walk their dogs, run errands and buy groceries, meet friends for dinner and drinks. Daily life has become sinister in its banality, because Minneapolis remains a city under siege. ICE and CBP agents roam the streets, though their tactics have shifted as of late: No longer acting like an occupying army, the Department of Homeland Security now operates like secret police.” (02/12/26)
https://www.theverge.com/policy/877106/minneapolis-ice-cbp-occupation-immigration-raid-mutual-aid
- The EU’s Wine Package
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes“After decades of subsidizing expansion, Brussels is now paying to destroy vineyards, without fixing the distortions it created. The European Union is paying to uproot vineyards. The new Wine Package, proposed in March 2025 with a provisional agreement reached in December 2025, proposes among several measures, the possibility of using EU funds for the voluntary destruction of productive vines, which represents the most visible sign of a market distortion created by decades of intervention from Brussels. Successive policies supporting the wine sector progressively disconnected production from market signals. The result was a growing imbalance, marked by persistent surpluses and, later, by subsidies aimed at vineyard removal itself.” 902/12/26)
- Proxy Advisors Pay the Price for Their ESG Crusade
Source: The Daily Economy
by Paul Mueller & Thomas Savidge“Once firmly established in American finance, the proxy advisory industry now faces regulatory threats and AI-driven challenges. To survive, firms must serve customers, not political agendas.” (02/12/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/proxy-advisors-are-paying-the-price-for-their-esg-crusade/
- How People Keep the World Economy Running
Source: Cobden Centre
by Elias Sanchez“Despite rising public debt, intensifying fiscal extraction, recurrent economic shocks, and heightened trade and policy uncertainty, the global economy has exhibited a striking degree of resilience. This resilience, however, goes beyond mere survival. It reflects a shift from robustness to what can be described as ‘antifragility,’ where systems not only withstand shocks but gain from them. This dynamic adaptation is evidenced not just in headline GDP figures consistently surpassing pessimistic forecasts, but more profoundly in the way markets adapt and evolve in response to these challenges, becoming stronger rather than merely enduring.” (02/12/26)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2026/02/how-people-keep-the-world-economy-running/
- Israel’s Activist Court
Source: Law & Liberty
by Daniel J Samet“Yonatan Green’s book shows in exhaustive detail how Israel’s highest court has assumed undue powers and threatens democratic rule.” (02/12/26)
- The Postliberal Mind Virus
Source: Law & Liberty
by Michael Lucchese“For several months now, controversy has swirled over Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts and his strange defense of Tucker Carlson against charges of antisemitism. A wave of staffers have resigned from Heritage in protest, as well as a number of high-profile trustees. More interesting than the daily drama of open letters and leaked team meetings, though, is the way the controversy has become a proxy fight for the battle to define the future of the conservative movement. Many of Roberts’s most passionate and vocal supporters come from the so-called ‘postliberal’ camp. … These new ideologues of the right seem far less interested in preserving the particular arrangements and commitments of the American Republic (and the philosophical truths they incarnate) than in promoting some abstract sense of, to use Howting’s term, ‘Western identity.'” (02/12/26)
- Radical ideology replaces competence at the NYC Health Department
Source: Fox News
by Steve Forbes“New York City is facing serious public health challenges. Drug overdoses are surging. Mental illness is rampant. Emergency rooms are under strain. Life expectancy in parts of the city has declined. So what are some employees at the New York City Department of Health reportedly studying? The effects of ‘global oppression’ on health. This is not a joke. It is a disturbing example of how ideology has displaced competence in city government — and how taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill. A public health department has a straightforward mission: protect people from disease, respond to health emergencies and ensure basic safety standards. It exists to prevent outbreaks, combat addiction, improve maternal health and keep food and water safe. It is not a political theory workshop.” (02/12/25)
- A genius for friendship
Source: Power Line
by Scott Johnson“Abraham Lincoln stands not only as America’s greatest president but also as its greatest lawyer. At the time of his election to the presidency in 1860 he was the most prominent practicing lawyer in the state of Illinois. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its ‘ancient faith’ that all men are created equal. How can it be that lawyers know so little of the giant of their profession?” (02/12/26)
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/02/a-genius-for-friendship-12.php
- 1953 Redux — Neocons Want To Saddle Iran With the Son of the Persian Stalin
Source: Antiwar.com
by Charles Goyette“It’s getting a little old at this point, but as the Deep State log rolls for another U.S. attack on Iran, it is promoting a new Iranian national savior, one with a familiar name. Here’s a graphic seen on X, much like others showing up on social media, championing Reza Pahlavi as ‘the legitimate national leader of Iran.’ Because Pahlavi calls for more U.S. intervention in Iran including airstrikes, his champions are a midnight choir of failed voices from prior regime change calamities: Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, James Woolsey. He is featured frequently in the warmongering of the Empire’s lapdog press, in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and on Fox News. Pahlavi’s only claim to legitimacy is that he is the son of the late-Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was driven from Iran in the 1979 revolution.” (02/12/26)
- Is a Mass Revolt Against Technocracy Starting to Happen?
Source: CounterPunch
by Tom Valovic“Let’s be clear about what’s happening here: robots and AI are taking over our culture, our politics, our way of life and our relationships to each other as social beings. They’re becoming the advance guard for a new and unprecedented technocratic form of governance — the apotheosis of Western scientific materialism. Further, these new forms of governance are being carried out by unelected Big Tech overlords operating behind the scenes and in the backrooms of a mediated society well out of public view. I certainly hope that Gioia is right about a major cultural rejection of technocracy. There are indeed hopeful signs.” (02/12/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/02/12/is-a-mass-revolt-against-technocracy-starting-to-happen/
- What’s the Right-Wing Beef with Cuban Socialism?
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“Right-wing American statists are celebrating with great glee the U.S. government’s economic strangulation of the Cuban people through its embargo and oil siege because right-wingers say they’re opposed to socialism, which has long been the economic system of Cuba’s communist regime. What these right-wing statists and interventionists fail to recognize, however, is that they, like most Americans, fully embrace the socialist principles that undergird Cuba’s socialist economic system. They fail to recognize that communist Cuba has simply carried the socialist principles that underlie American socialism to their logical conclusions.” (02/12/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/02/12/whats-the-right-wing-beef-with-cuban-socialism/
- From Pill Mills to Prop Bets: Prediction Markets and Mobile Sports Betting Apps Are Fueling America’s Next Addiction Crisis
Source: Liberal Currents
by Alan Elrod“Prediction markets are one key component of America’s flourishing online gambling ecosystem. And they rely on the type of wager that many experts see as being at the heart of modern problem gambling: the prop bet. Prop bets (more formally, proposition bets) are bets that can be placed on specific eventuality, from how many touchdowns a quarterback will throw in a game to, yes, whether Jesus Christ will return in this calendar year. This gamblification of the world is the business model. Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket proudly boast that users can bet on just about any proposition imaginable.” (02/12/26)
- Middle Powers are setting the table so they won’t be “on the menu”
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Laura Mahrenbach, Narayanappa Janardhan, Gedaliah Afterman, & Maximilian Mayer“The global order was already fragmenting before Donald Trump returned to the White House. But the upended ‘rules’ of global economic and foreign policies have now reached a point of no return. What has changed is not direction, but speed. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s remarks in Davos last month — ‘Middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu’ — captured the consequences of not acting quickly. And Carney is not alone in those fears. Leaders around the world are increasingly moving from rhetorical warnings about the systemic risks of superpower dynamics to actively experimenting with new ways of navigating what Carney called ‘a rupture in the world order.'” (02/12/26)
- Don Lemon’s Travail [sic] a Warning of Rising Authoritarianism
Source: Common Dreams
by Stephen R Weissman“Former CNN anchor Don Lemon is under federal indictment for participating in a Minnesota protest group’s obstruction of a church service. He is scheduled to be arraigned Friday. News of his prosecution took me back more than five decades to when I was a young university professor in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). At that time, President Mobutu Sese Seko’s government threatened to arrest me for my alleged involvement in student disruptions. In both cases, increasingly authoritarian governments decided to clamp down on independent observers (journalists or others) who sympathized with community activists. To do so, they distorted what actually happened to serve their political interests. Yet, I suspect that the last person President Donald Trump wants to be compared to is a corrupt, fallen, disgraced African dictator.” [editor’s note: He performed as a part of the story, not as a real journalist, and should pay the penalty for violating the rights of the pastor and parishioner, End of story – SAT] [additional editor’s note: I’d chide SAT every time he was wrong, but nobody wants two editors’ notes EVERY time – TLK] (02/12/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/don-lemon-authoritarianism
- Rising, 02/12/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) demanding answers from Attorney General Pam Bondi and others about Epstein files.” (02/12/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5729365-rising-february-12-2026/
- The Libertarian Angle, 02/12/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“China’s Punishment of Jimmy Lai.” (02/12/26)
- Radio Atlantic, 02/12/26
Source: The Atlantic
“Iran Wants Him Arrested. He’s Going Back Anyway.” (02/12/26)
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/02/jafar-panahi-iran-oscars/685963
- Bulwark Takes, 02/12/26
Source: The Bulwark
“Sen. Mark Kelly: Trump’s DOJ Couldn’t Get a Single Grand Jury Vote.” (02/12/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 02/12/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Bondi’s Breakdown: Epstein Hearing Descends Into Chaos!” (02/12/26)
- The Chris Hedges Report, 02/12/26
Source: The Chris Hedges Report
“INTERVIEW: Corrupt, Filthy, Degenerates (MOATS w/ George Galloway).” (02/12/26)
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/interview-corrupt-filthy-degenerates
- Underthrow Podcast, 02/12/26
Source: Underthrow
“How Currency Debasement End Empires w/ Max Borders.” (02/12/26)
- The Headlines, 02/12/26
Source: New York Times
“Anti-Drone Laser Is Said to Have Caused El Paso Airport Chaos, and Bondi Refuses to Apologize to Epstein Victims.” (02/12/26)
- The Fifth Column, episode 544
Source: The Fifth Column
“The Great American Mustache Ride (w/ John Bolton).” (02/12/26)
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/the-global-mustache-ride-w-john-bolton
- Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 02/12/26
Source: Politico
“Targeting Trump’s tariffs.” (02/12/26)
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 02/12/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Threat to Rig 2026 Grows with Damning Report on FBI Georgia Raid.” (02/12/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/206502/trump-threat-rig-2026-grows-damning-report-fbi-georgia-raid
- Fountainhead Forum, episode 422
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Cara Schulz on immigration enforcement in Minnesota.” (02/12/26)
https://rumble.com/v75n7us-ff-422-cara-schulz-on-immigration-enforcement-in-minnesota.html
- The Daily, 02/12/26
Source: New York Times
“The Secret Plan to End U.S. Climate Regulations.” (02/12/26)
- Advisory Opinion, 02/12/26
Source: The Dispatch
“Naw Dawg to the DOJ.” (02/12/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/advisoryopinions/naw-dawg-to-the-doj/